


Orlesian Dress

by Teawithmagician



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Het, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, Light Angst, Prequel, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 23:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5352170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teawithmagician/pseuds/Teawithmagician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...her father refused Loghain of her hand when she was sixteen, and, repeatedly, eighteen. Elissa was twenty-two, just came back from the sea voyage to Kirkwall. She knew that on her return Loghain would talk to Brice once again, for the third and, supposedly, the last time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orlesian Dress

**Author's Note:**

> Prequel to DA:O where Loghain courted Elissa before earl Howe attacked Castle Cousland. Perhaps in what multiverse Howe didn't attack Castle Cousland at all, Loghain joined the battle of Ostagar, and... well, yes, Cailan was still dead. Or not.
> 
> There are references to Hades & Persephone myth, also to Terry Pratchett's «Wintersmith» and the Dance of the Seasons in this text (here may be more capital letters than the author guessed to type).

"I am an unlucky man," Loghain Mac Tir said, holding in his hands the reins of the horse, Ferelden and Elissa Cousland’s heart. Elissa remained silent, green band in her hair dancing in the wind. Elissa had her reasons not to speak — that day she was both a huntress and a prey.

Her father refused Loghain of her hand when she was sixteen, and, repeatedly, eighteen. Elissa was twenty-two, just came back from the sea voyage to Kirkwall. She knew that on her return Loghain would talk to Brice once again, for the third and, supposedly, the last time.

Loghain waited for Brice Cousland to come back from Amaranthine, but Elissa couldn't wait any longer. She wrote a letter and told her old nurse to put it under guest chambers' door where Loghain used to sojourn. The nurse said that behind the door was quiet, as quiet as before the storm, and Elissa felt like a lightning: she struck to inflame and inflamed herself.

Loghain looked calm and a bit indifferent as he was used to, but there were times when he easily lost his temper, and those times were clearly coming. Elissa was high-tempered, but she kept calm because shouting and slapping servants was not the way Couslands do, and, in any way, it just wouldn't help. So she wrote Loghain several lines, nevertheless, it was enough for him to understand — they needed, they must meet.

"I need to see you, better the glade before the forest and behind the old mill where the runestone stands. Come at dawn, I will wait."

Loghain came, black-haired on a black horse, a horseman to whom not every Chevallier would be a decent match. Elissa was waiting for him in her emerald Marchan dress with a band and a wild dog rose in her hair. Their horses stood so close that they could snuggle nostrils, the wind was weak and fresh and smelled with pines and distant hunters’ bonfire. It felt like a ballad, Elissa wanted to sing.

"I am an unlucky man. What I love, I lose."

"But what is it for me?" asked Elissa impatiently. Love ballads were of love, not of loss: she didn't come to mourn and felt disappointed a bit.

"You were a child in a pink dress, sitting on my knees, playing with dolls and dogs. I saw you turning into a woman, and I wanted you to become my wife. An old husband to a young wife is always unlucky," explained Loghain louringly. Black as raven's wing his hair was with not a single silver string in it, but his eyes were full of winter, and it felt like the winter came from his eyes to the runestone glade.

"Why do you say so?" Elissa asked ignoring cold and devastation sounded in his words. Her heart was spring, but Loghain spoke of winter, and winter frost started to hurt her sun lusting flowers.

"Because there’ll be always a lot of bold youngsters nearby. If I attack them, I am pitiful, if I don’t, I am a cuckold."

"You asked for my hand twice, and I know that you are going to do it again," remembered Elissa persistently, still eager to bloom at any price. "What has changed? Or is it you who changed? Or is it me?"

"You wear an Orlesian dress," said Loghain for no reason. Morning cool was biting Elissa's bare shoulders framed with grassy green, goose bumps climbed her skin uneasy both with the coolness and the words.

"This? No, it is a Marchan one. I am not sure, it is a present."

"Yes, it is. It is a present of Nathaniel Howe," said Loghain angrily. His anger was sudden as a late spring frost, killing the crops with its deadly breath. "Your bands and flowers, your smiles and hair. Can a woman like you be faithful? Less than the other ones."

"Are you insane, my lord?" Elisse asked astonishingly. "I wore that dress and put a flower in my hair and came here this morning so cold without even a cloak on because I love you, and I want you to adore me, to love me more than any woman; any other women — those numerous women in Ferelden — who want to drive attention of the Hero of River Dane. Shouldn’t I be jealous of your glory which calls to women like a flame calls to moths? Why don’t you..."

"I don’t," Loghain cut her irritatingly, merciless as the winter itself. "I've heard enough of Free Marches and Nathaniel Howe, I’ve heard enough of he and his Vael friend, and how they spend their time in the City of Chains."

"No you don’t!" shouted Elissa, losing her temper. Horses became nervous, their stomped and throbbed, snorting and raising their hooves. Loghain was tough, but Elissa's will of life was immense, and he couldn't put her to the ground that easy. "You are sitting in Denerim like a deadite in his crypt, life passing before you eyes as you are not impressed by it! What can you know of life outside Ferelden? You can't even see without the eyes of your jealousy!"

"I have heard enough!", roared Loghain. "Do you think I’ve never been of your age? Never seen the world, always rotted in Gwaren and vegetated in Denerim? I know that nobles like your dearie bastard think of and I know why you've wanted to visit him so badly!"

"He is my friend!"

"What is how you call it now, a ’friend’!"

"You are jealous because you are afraid," said Elissa accusingly. Madness boiled in her, and she was ready to unleash it any moment, but Loghain didn't scold in response — he asked with slight, strange dark interest, "And what do you think I am afraid of?"

"Of love and being loved. You just cannot cope with the fact somebody could love you and care of you, and you needn’t put that somebody on a leash because true love needn’t leashes, it is devoted and it is free."

"Nicely said, but what about you, teyrna?" Loghain sneered. "You knew I spoke to Brice, you knew — everyone knew — what Loghain Mac Tir had gone mad about Cousland girl. What did you do then? All those years you took me for granted, talked to me through Brice, and in the end, you just went to Kirkwall to meet those bastard friends of yours with no explanation at all!"

"I took you for granted?" Elissa outbursted with anger. "You never talked to me, you always behaved like what I think of you didn't matter at all! All you did was sending presents and staring at me from the another side of the hall when coming to the castle. You never rode near me, never took my hand, never spoke of love before I told you so — what did you wait from me then? I was sixteen! Sixteen! And you were a man who once was married. You were — and you are — Loghain Mac Tir!"

"What’s that to you? Are you gonna marry a legend or a man?" shouted Loghain, and Elissa distantly thought that they had gone too far. A part of her wanted to hit him, to hurt him worse than he did, but the other part stunned as it saw Elissa's hopes ruining word by word, abuse by abuse: she didn't want it that way, didn't want them to fight like hunger snow wolfs.

Elissa said too much, so did Loghain. But it was him who started that, wasn’t he? Fury rose in Elissa's heart, but she noticed, though she didn't want to, that Loghain didn’t look satisfied with the quarrel: he looked tired, he looked old, he looked exhausted. It wasn’t the way she wanted it to, but maybe it just couldn’t go any other way with a man he was and a woman she became?

"Oh, my lord," said Elissa, touching his reins. She was ready to grab them and pull as Loghain was going to leave if she needed to. Loghain caught her hand, looking at Elissa intimidatedly, but Elissa insisted. "It would be silly if ended like that. What wasn’t exactly I wanted to say, but you would ask me if I want to become your wife instead of my father... if you wanted to."

"And if I changed my mind?" said Loghain harshly.

"When..." Elissa wavered. "When you wouldn’t, I s’ppose."

Loghain released her hand and turned back as he was about to go. It must have been over, but then he looked at Elissa once again, like it was important to him to see her before he left. That was the moment of his weakness, and Elissa called him by the name:

"Loghain... Please don’t do it. It is not what you want."

"You don’t know what I want," answered Loghain shortly, but this time instead of pulling he loosened the reins, so Elissa approached. She didn't know what to say, but she felt it, and her heart spoke instead of her mind.

"I don’t, neither do you," she said tenderly. "I know I need you. Do you need me?"

Loghain touched her hair, lush rye curls lying on Elissa’s shoulders. While he caressed her hair, playing with their soft ends, Elissa kissed his hand, and Loghain kissed Elissa — firstly her cheek, solemnly and strictly like her father’s friend could kiss her. But his second kiss was on the lips, and it was a lover’s one, burning like a midwinter frost; the one Nathaniel could never outdo.

***

If you like this, you may also like my original work: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5239496/chapters/12085874  
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